Just how liberal does writer-director Adam Leon expect audiences to be? His movie, “Gimme the Loot,” depicts a pair of teenage vandals who go around New York City writing and spray-painting their names everywhere. But these graffiti spreaders have an ambition, a lofty one: They want to spray paint their insignias on the big plastic apple that comes up at the ballpark every time someone on the Mets hits a home run. They want to graffiti “bomb” the Mets.

Now just a word for those among us unfamiliar with New York sports. The Mets are the good guys. They’re the underdogs. If you’re going to spray paint something to do with baseball, and you want even a fraction of a chance at audience sympathy, graffiti bomb the Yankees. But even then, it wouldn’t work. Mets fans might like to see the Yankees lose, but they don’t want to see them vandalized.

But the two young people at the center of “Gimme the Loot” aren’t mere graffiti artists. Malcolm (Ty Hickson) is also a liar, a thief and the courier for a drug dealer. At one point, he delivers marijuana to a rich girl, about 20 years old, and as he is smiling and being nice to her, he’s casing the joint. When she leaves the room, he’s stealing small change. Later he steals the key to her house. The movie tries to justify this behavior — as if this were possible — by having the girl (Zoe Lescaze), turn out to be a condescending snob. But no, Malcolm was already planning to rob her when he liked her.

Perhaps Leon thinks Malcolm’s thieving and drug-running is OK because the young man needs money to buy art supplies. After all, how else will he and his best friend, Sofia (Tashiana Washington), be able to continue destroying public and private party? The mind boggles.

Leon gets good performances from his cast of non-actors, particularly Hickson, whose relaxed manner and easy way with comedy makes him appealing, in spite of the character. But “Gimme the Loot” demands too much from the audience, not only that we enter a morally skewed universe, but that we walk away without ever noticing its distortions. That just can’t happen.